One of the pleasures of having children around is the almost endless number of vicarious experiences they supply to the world-weary adult. Just by living with them, you are daily reminded that life is ever renewing itself, and that one generation’s been-there-done-that is the next generation’s thrill-to-come. Eventually children learn what’s expected of them; how to be cool; how things work. For a while, though, the world is a source of surprise, repugnance, and hilarity.
The other day, for instance, I happened while folding laundry to overhear a conversation in the next room. It took me a few minutes to puzzle out its subject:
“Ugh, that’s disgusting,” the 11-year-old could be heard to say.
“Why would anyone want to see her whole entire leg, sticking out?” the 9-year-old said.
“Ew, this guy has makeup all over his eyes,” the 5-year-old said.
“She looks like Little Orphan Annie, with her hair all exploded. It’s so ugly!”
“People think boobs are nice but I think they’re gross.”
“Don’t talk about it!”
“Who wants to wear a square hat?”
Ah, I realized, they were leafing through one of my copies of Vogue magazine.
A day or so later it happened that the three of them and I (the teenagers were at home, sleeping) found ourselves riding in a town car. It was an ordinary town car such as businesspeople use: Shiny black and clean inside, with a medicinal smell and a pleasant driver. It was nice, but nothing special.
For the girls, however, the vehicle was transport to the Big Time. They couldn’t believe what was happening. The soft seats, the tinted windows, the tiny reading lights that extended over their shoulders in the back seat. It was vehicular luxury of a kind they could scarcely imagine, accustomed as they are to the crumbs and mayhem of the family minivan.
“This is a limo!”
“It’s not the stretchy kind, though.”
“Is this a limo?”
“I am very rich and I have a grand house in Paris and this is my limo.”
“Ooh, look! Water! And peppermint candies!”
“We always have peppermint candies in Paris, you know, dah-ling. Quick, gimme one.”
There was a moment of two of quiet. Glancing back from the front passenger’s seat, I saw the three of them pressing their backs against the seat and breathing deeply, their faces enraptured, as if they were getting aromatherapy.
Presently, one girl spoke up. “I wonder if people are noticing us as we drive by and thinking, Gee, who is in that limo?”
“It must be someone famous. They are thinking that.”
“They probably think we’re famous. We’re famous.”
As the car moved through the indifferent streets, past joggers and iPhone zombies and mothers pushing strollers, the driver and I shared a rueful smile. The joy of a town car was long lost for us, but at least some passengers were still able to get a kick of out of it.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
